I have found that the Cortinarius dermocybes tend to be very sensitive to hot water. I used hot tap water which was around 110 degrees and added the ground mushrooms to the water. I did not cook these mushrooms or increase the temperature. I simply let them sit in the water for an hour and it eventually cooled to 85 degrees, strained the dye bath and dropped in the fibers.

Rachel Zoller was one of the first people I met on my fungi journey. I came across her Instagram and learned she lived in my new ‘neighborhood’ and was teaching a Mushroom Foray class at Wildcraft Studio School. I was elated! I immediately signed up for the class. We met at her parents white water rafting company, where I had been going for the past decade to float down the White Salmon river with co-workers. I mistakenly thought her name was Elanor!

I was curious to learn more about dye mushrooms and start to make identifications. Rachel took me under her wing and off I went. We became friends and one day I got a message from her that she had found a big patch of dye mushrooms. She sent me a photo and asked if I would like her to gather them for me. I went bonkers! It was the largest patch of Cortinarius neosanguines I had ever seen. She thoughtfully gathered these tiny little ones, dried them, stored them in an airtight glass jar and gifted them to me. I used these mushrooms to make the studies in the Mushroom Color Atlas. Thank you Rachel, not only for this amazing gift but all the gifts you have given me in sharing your knowledge, passion and expertise of the myco world with me all these years.